Contents

Early life

Kimball was born on March 4, 1914, in Minneapolis. His father was a salesman who traveled widely. He grew up in the Midwest, often residing with his grandparents.[1]

Career

While Kimball was a brilliant
draftsman, he preferred to work on comical characters rather than realistic human designs. Animating came easily to him and he was constantly looking to do things differently. Because of this,
Walt Disney called Ward a genius in the book The Story of Walt Disney.[2] While there were many talented animators at Disney, Ward's efforts stand out as unique.

In 1936, Kimball was promoted to an animator in his own right. He continued to work in the Silly Symphony series. Some of his memorable credits in this position include the animated short films Toby Tortoise Returns (1936),
More Kittens (1936), and
Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938). His first solo effort as an animator was animating a grasshopper turned musician in Woodland Café (1937).[3]

Kimball was included in the team of animators known later as
Disney's Nine Old Men, whose original task was animating Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The film was the first feature-length animated film by the Disney studio.[3] Kimball spent months working on the sequence animation for a scene where the
Seven Dwarfs are eating soup, prepared for them by
Snow White.[3] This scene, however, was ultimately left out, since it would have come after the sequence in which the dwarfs washed their hands.

Following the release of Snow White, Kimball was promoted to a supervising or directing animator. He would remain in this position until his retirement in the 1970s. His employer
Walt Disney was sufficiently satisfied with Kimball's work that he entrusted him with designing new character
Jiminy Cricket. The character was intended for use in the Disney studio's next feature film, Pinocchio. It took Kimball 12 or 14 drafts before completing his final design of Jiminy.[3] Kimball told one interviewer that he "hated" animating Jiminy Cricket: "I got sick of drawing that oval head looking in every direction."[4]) Kimball's next major task was designing the sympathetic Crows in Dumbo (1941). Following the example of the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White, Kimball had to give each crow a distinct appearance and character.[3]

Kimball served as a screenwriter for the
featuretteEyes In Outer Space (1959). The film combined live action and animation. It depicted
weather satellites and explained how the weather is predicted. The film was originally theatrically released. Around 1962, it started being shown in
Disneyland.[3]

Kimball also worked (as a writer) on the live-action film Babes in Toyland (1961), a musical film.[3] He later returned to television and directed 43 episodes of The Mouse Factory (1972–1973).[3]

According to Jeff Lenburg, Kimball retired in 1973 and left the Disney studio. He continued, however, to serve as a consultant on special assignments. He worked on the
World of Motion attraction for Disney's
EPCOT Center.[3]

Other activities

Kimball was profiled by producer
Jerry Fairbanks in his
Paramount Pictures film short series Unusual Occupations. This
35mmMagnacolor film short was released theatrically in 1944; it focused on Kimball's backyard railroad and full-sized locomotive.

Kimball was also a
jazztrombonist. He founded and led the seven-piece
Dixieland band
Firehouse Five Plus Two, in which he played
trombone. The band made at least 13
LP records and toured clubs, college campuses and jazz festivals from the 1940s to early 1970s. Kimball once said that Walt Disney permitted the second career as long as it did not interfere with his animation work. Kimball appeared on the March 17, 1954, episode of You Bet Your Life, where
Groucho Marx coaxed him into playing his trombone with the house band. He and his partner won $75 in their quiz portion of the show, including one Disney animation question that Kimball answered easily.

Kimball also produced two editions of a volume titled Art Afterpieces,[8] in which he revised various well-known works of art, such as putting Mona Lisa's hair up in curlers, showing Whistler's Mother watching TV, and adding a
Communist flag and
Russian boots to Pinkie. These masterpiece remixes are thought to have been appropriated by the street artist
Banksy.[9]

As recounted in
Neal Gabler's biography of Walt Disney,[10] Ward Kimball was a key figure in spreading the
urban legend that Disney had left instructions for his body to be preserved by
cryonics after his death.

Amid Amidi wrote a biography of Kimball, Full Steam Ahead: The Life and Art of Ward Kimball that was projected for publication in the fall of 2012.[11] However, publication of the biography was canceled in February 2013, which Amidi believed was due to pressure from the Disney corporation.[12]

Kimball was an avid railway enthusiast and donated his
3 ft (914 mm)
narrow gauge collection to the
Orange Empire Railway Museum (OERM) in
Perris, California. A full-size
steam locomotive, which Kimball ran on his private 3-acre (12,000 m2) backyard railroad known as Grizzly Flats Railroad in
San Gabriel, California, bears some of his original artwork on the headlamp and cab, and is on permanent display at the museum.[15][16] Kimball's roundhouse also included two small steam engines that had been used on sugar cane plantations, one of which was his and the other was owned by his friend, noted railroad historian
Gerald M. Best.[17] In recognition to his love of railroading and support of the Orange Empire Railway Museum, the Perris Transit Center, where OERM historic trains travel, is dedicated to Mr. Kimball. In a rare deviation from its usually tight copyright policy, the Disney corporation allowed the city to decorate the transit center with Kimball's artwork. The center is currently served by
Riverside Transit Agency buses, with train service as part of the
Metrolink Perris Valley Line.[18]

Kimball is credited with helping
Walt Disney for the inspiration to install the
Disneyland Railroad at
Disneyland. The inspiration for the Disneyland Railroad also partly came from Disney's personal 71⁄4 in (184 mm) gauge,
live steam backyard
Carolwood Pacific Railroad, which Kimball had partially constructed. Kimball's Grizzly Flats train station served as the model for the Disneyland Frontierland Train Station. As a tribute to Kimball, Engine No. 5 of the Disneyland Railroad is named the Ward Kimball.[15][6]

In addition, Kimball also designed the logo for the Wildcat Railroad in Los Gatos, CA, owned by
Billy Jones, a friend of Walt Disney who was an engineer for the Disneyland Railroad during its first week of operation.[19]

Archive

The Academy Film Archive houses the Kimball Family Collection which includes over 60 home movie reels, as well as short films, TV spots, and jazz band performances, serving to document Ward’s personal interests and moments in his extraordinary career. The collection also includes home movies and shorts by his son, filmmaker and animator John Kimball.[26]